Machine Project

This one day workshop will teach you how to build a small and portable spring reverb unit for use in your home studio, with your guitar amp, or with anything else you’d like to add more boing to. You’ll leave the class not just with your reverb unit, but with basic soldering skills and the know-how to make small amps and preamps. Sign up now — registration closes Wednesday!

Registration is $85 for members / $100 for non-members. Visit the following link for more information about the class, and to sign up: /build/engine/archive/classwork/2013/08/17/cigar-box-springslinky-reverb-workshop/

Join us for a screening of the classic 1981 Wallace Shawn film My Dinner with Andre, as filtered through Ezra Buchla’s brain and an echo machine through which he will feed the movie’s audio and then process in accordance to his reactions to the film. Come for some or all of the two-hour movie, and feel free to bring your own dinner to eat during the performance.

An informal group discussion with Los Angeles-based artists Nate Page, Dawn Kasper, Luke Fischbeck, and three specially-invited guests, in which all speech is delayed three seconds — just long enough for every prompt to become an interruption, and for the speaker to be perpetually embarrassed by the sound of their own voice. You are invited to come prepared with questions for the panel, who will follow their own agenda of topics that don’t demand immediate attention.

Bennett Williamson will present and lightly host a short mix of found YouTube videos that documents humanity’s numerous and mildly successful attempts to capture auditory phenomena on consumer grade video equipment and cell phones. From the mountains to the valleys, from the gongs to the Disney cruise horns, from the air raid siren enthusiasts to the castle cistern free jazz, this mix brings us close listening for the short attention span.

Join us for a celebration of the duality of both existence and Los Angeles’ favorite anthropomorphic feet. We will meet at Machine Project then process together down Sunset Boulevard to the base of the Happy Foot Sad Foot sign, where Jessica Cowley will lead a public space singalong that will oscillate between happy and sad songs. Songbooks will be provided, and the tone-deaf and singing-phobic are welcome.

This event serves as the official launch of www.sunsetfootclinicsign.com, Bennett Williamson’s website that presents a faithfully recreated 3-D animation of the local icon. This single-serving website provides fate-prediction services for users outside of the greater Echo Park / Silver Lake area, and serves as digital life insurance for the populist landmark.

This event is part of Machine Project’s Field Guide to L.A. Architecture.

DeepSound is a high-bandwidth acoustic recording, free-falling system designed by David Barclay to profile ambient noise from the surface of the ocean to depths of 9 km. DeepSound has been to the bottom of the Tongan and Mariana Trenches, and has likely produced the deepest recordings ever made. A selection of these recordings will be playing on the brand new Machine Project bathroom speaker during all our events this weekend.

On Sunday, August 11th, Josh Forbes and Jacqueline Gordon recorded the sound of a popping balloon in Machine Project. Using convolution reverb, this sound will be transformed into an acoustic model of our storefront gallery, then made into a plugin. Said plugin will be available for download on Saturday, August 17th so you, too, can impart the acoustics of Machine Project onto your own recordings.

Echo Park, a landscape of heights, vistas and tunnels, is also a place of echoes. It is allegedly named after the natural phenomenon of voices bouncing back from the empty reservoir and hills that would become Echo Park Lake and Sunset Blvd. With over a century of development and landscaping, these first echoes are gone, but the name remains. Where are the echoes of yesterday and today? Want to go on an echo hunt? Contact Erin Schneider at eafschneider@gmail.com with your thoughts. Research will culminate in a group sourced map and tour of the current echo locations of Echo Park with Machine Project.